Abstract
Best known as licorice, Glycyrrhiza Linn., a genus of herbaceous perennial legume, has been used as a traditional herbal medicine in Asia and a flavoring agent for tobacco and food industry in Europe and America. Abiotic stresses and hormonal treatments can significantly impact the development and metabolism of secondary metabolites in Glycyrrhiza. To better understand the biosynthesis of the trace-amount bioactive compounds, we first screened for the suitable reference genes for quantitative real-time reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis in Glycyrrhiza. The expression profiles of 14 candidate reference genes, including Actin1 (ACT), Clathrin complex AP1 (CAC), Cyclophilin (CYP), Heat-shock protein 40 (DNAJ), Dehydration responsive element binding gene (DREB), Translation elongation factor1 (EF1), Ras related protein (RAN), Translation initiation factor (TIF1), β-Tubulin (TUB), Ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme E2 (UBC2), ATP binding-box transpoter 2 (ABCC2), COP9 signal compex subunit 3 (COPS3), Citrate synthase (CS), and R3H domain protein 2 (R3HDM2) from two congeneric species, Glycyrrhiza uralensis F. and Glycyrrhiza inflata B., were examined under abiotic stresses (osmotic and salinity) and hormonal treatments (Abscisic acid (ABA) and methyl jasmonic acid (MeJA)) using a panel of software, including geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper, and Delta CT. The overall stability, however, was provided by RefFinder, a comprehensive ranking system integrating inputs from all four algorithms. In G. uralensis, the most stable reference genes under osmotic stress, salt stress, ABA treatment, and MeJA treatment were TIF1, DNAJ, CS, and ABCC2 for leaves and DNAJ, DREB, CAC, and CAC for roots, respectively. In comparison, the top ranked genes were TUB, CAC, UBC2, and RAN for leaves and TIF1, ABCC2, CAC, and UBC2 for roots, respectively, under stress and hormonal treatments in G. inflata. ACT and TIF1, on the other hand, were the least stable genes under the most experimental conditions in the two congeneric species. Finally, our survey of the reference genes in legume shows that EF, ACT, UBC2, and TUB were the top choices for the abiotic stresses while EF, UBC2, CAC, and ABCC2 were recommended for the hormonal treatments in Leguminosae. Our combined results provide reliable normalizers for accurate gene quantifications in Glycyrrhiza species, which will allow us to exploit its medicinal potential in general and antiviral activities in particular.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-26-2020
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.3390/plants9111441
Funding Information
This research was funded by National Key R&D Project from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2019YFC1711102), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31270319) and Department of Science and Technology of Guangzhou (202002030442).
Related Content
Data will be available upon request. RNA-seq datasets used in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found below: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/, PRJNA574093.
The following are available at http://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/9/11/1441/s1: Table S1: All the Cq Values under di fferent experimental conditions in G. uralensis, Table S2: All the Cq Values under di fferent experimental conditions in G. inflata, Table S3: Cq values of candidate reference genes under di fferent conditions in G. uralensis and G. inflata, Table S4: Stability of candidate reference genes under di fferent conditions in G. uralensis, Table S5: Stability of candidate reference genes under different conditions in G. inflata, Table S6: Recommended reference genes for qRT-PCR analysis under di fferent conditions in Leguminosae plants. These supplementary tables are also available for download as the additional file listed at the end of this record.
Repository Citation
Li, Yuping; Liang, Xiaoju; Zhou, Xuguo; Wu, Zhigeng; Yuan, Ling; Wang, Ying; and Li, Yongqing, "Selection of Reference Genes for qRT-PCR Analysis in Medicinal Plant Glycyrrhiza under Abiotic Stresses and Hormonal Treatments" (2020). Entomology Faculty Publications. 202.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/entomology_facpub/202
Supplemental materials
Notes/Citation Information
Published in Plants, v. 9, issue 11, 1441.
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).